Japanese museums shun video artwork on wartime atrocities acclaimed abroad
‘The work will only truly be complete when people can see it in Japan,’ Meiro Koizumi says of his award-winning creation
Created by contemporary artist Meiro Koizumi, “The Angels of Testimony”, has won acclaim overseas, but Japanese museums have been reluctant to exhibit the work, which confronts memories of violence committed by Japanese troops during the Sino-Japanese war.
“The work will only truly be complete when people can see it in Japan,” said Koizumi, 50, who hopes it will eventually be exhibited in his home country.
Three screens emerge from the darkness of the exhibition space. At the centre is the late Hajime Kondo, a former Imperial Japanese Army soldier who was 99 when the work was filmed.
